Sitting By The Side Of The Road
by Reeves3
Summary: While trying to avoid that certain someone to protect herself from further heartbreak Jessie's car breaks down and she recollects her past loves but what happens when the person she's avoiding finds her? R&R but most of all ENJOY!


**Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own anything that you recognise.**

**Author's Note: I'm half and half about this fanfic but I hope you readers enjoy it.**

**There's a song towards the end that Jessie plays and sings so I'd like you to listen to on Youtube it's called "Sitting By The Side Of The Road" by Andie MacDowell from the movie Michael. I haven't watched the film in years but I've always liked the song.**

**This is quite a long fic and I don't think half of it makes sense at times. :P**

**However, read, enjoy, fave and don't forget to leave a review.**

**Reeves3.**

* * *

**Sitting By The Side Of The Road**

The one way street travelling through a mass of emptiness out in the middle of the far west desert was lit only by the stars and the waxing crescent moon. Out in the open the stars shone bright and in their millions to the view of the naked eye against the black sky. The air was cool and the ground was still warm after having spent hours under the glare of the sun all day. Somewhere in the distance a pack of coyotes were howling.

And then the stars and the moon wasn't the solitary light source.

A car turned the corner from behind a rusty red rock formation rising out of the dry terrain's hilltops. The high beams on the car cast shadows upon cactuses, hoodoos and dead plants and bushes while the little wildlife to be found on the side of the road hurried out the way of the cars rolling tyres. There wasn't any need to fear being squished however as the car was barely doing five miles per hour. Smoke or steam, Jessie couldn't tell from inside the car, was rising from the bonnet as she continued to drive slowly on the lane eager to get to a place to stay for the evening.

"Don't break down, don't break down..." she begged the car.

With a lurch the car rolled to a stop just in front of the fork in the road and Jessie moaned in frustration. She turned off the ignition and felt the car sigh with relief as white mist continued to wisp out from the sides of the bonnet. Regretting the idea to keep the car going in its distress Jessie quickly unbuckled her seatbelt and hurried to the front of the car. A cloud of steam puffed up in her face as she opened the hood and she brushed it away till it evaporated into the cool air. Using the light from her mobile phone Jessie peered into the darkness of the hood but with little knowledge of cars the problem remained a mystery.

"Okay," Jessie said aloud. "What am I going to do?" She closed the hood and walked to the sign post in the middle of the fork. To the left she had been planning to go, to a town called Avalion, and spend the rest of the night at an inn. The right road took her back to her home town Sycamore but she had left a month ago and wasn't ready to return there yet. To each destination it took an hour by car.

Jessie sighed again and ran a hand through the stands of fiery red hair that had come loose from her braid. Returning to the car Jessie tried to restart it but the engine remained flat and croaky before she switched it off again. The clock on the dashboard blinked **23:43**.

"Even if I ring for help, who'd be awake to answer?" asked Jessie. She thought of ringing her brother Woody who had moved out of Sycamore three years ago to Elm County which was miles away. _'Also,' _Jessie thought, '_I've been bothering him too much lately with my problems. He's got the kids now and married to Bo. I can't ask him to come all this way just for me.'_

Jessie picked up her phone and searched through the contacts. "Bart and Betty...no, Chuckles would find the whole situation hilarious, Dolly can't drive yet, Trixie...hmmm I wonder if Trixie is still awake playing those online games? I suppose it's worth a shot."

She pressed the call button and held the phone up to her ear. On the second ring Trixie answered.

"Rex if this is you again I said yes, I will go on a date with you, it wasn't a dream," she said, straight away. Jessie frowned and then arched an eyebrow. At the end of the line she could hear the click and clack of buttons on a laptop.

"This isn't Rex but I am curious about this date," said Jessie, teasingly.

"Who is this?" Trixie asked, cautiously.

"It's me, Jessie, I know-,"

Trixie shrieked down the phone and Jessie had to hold it at arm's length to avoid going deaf in the one ear. When Trixie stopped screaming, Jessie put the phone back to her ear and could hear her friend from high school, blabbering excitedly.

"-been? People were looking everywhere for you. Where did you go? Andy called Woody and he said you were visiting him so we knew you were safe but you did have us all worried by not saying goodbye,"

"Trixie, I need your help," Jessie interrupted.

"Are you running from the law? Is that why you left? What do you need help with? Did you kill a guy? Oh my god you did and now you need my help to cover the body-,"

"Trixie!" yelled Jessie. "I have not killed a person and nor am I running from the law. My car has broken down on Chestnut Road at the fork and I was calling to see if you could come pick me up?"

"Ohh, well sure I can get to you. Where did you say you were? At Chestnut's fork?" asked Trixie.

"Yes," Jessie replied.

"Wait a minute why you don't just call Buzz, he's the mechanic in the town?"

Jessie's heart skipped a beat and when she spoke next she struggled to keep her voice even.

"I can't. He'll be asleep at this hour plus..." Jessie sighed. "I don't think he'd want to see me."

"Well why not? It's not like you left because of him...Oh my god you did! You ran away!" Trixie shouted.

Jessie cringed as the reason of her avoidance of Sycamore came out of the shadows. Buzz Lightyear.

"I didn't run away-," Jessie started to explain.

"Then what did you do?" Trixie butted in.

"I left...promptly."

"You ran away from Buzz?" accused Trixie. Jessie bit her lip and gave in.

"Fine, I ran but it was for-,"

"Jessie, why did you run?"

"Look, can we talk about this later and can you come pick me up?" Jessie interrupted. Trixie paused and agreed.

"I'll see you in an hour. I'll be as quick as I can,"

"Thanks Trixie, see you in a bit."

Jessie ended the call. Resting her head back on the headrest, Jessie closed her eyes and sighed deeply. She hoped to feel elated about getting someone to come and help her but after the conversation with her friend Jessie felt disheartened. _'Running away_ _seems to be the only thing I am good at and love is what I'm worst at,'_ she thought.

Thinking deeply Jessie thought about her past.

When she was seventeen her first love had been Miles. He had been the rebellious type. The hellion on the motorbike that showed up late in front of her parent's house and whisked Jessie away with promises of everything they'd ever dreamed. Deep down Jessie knew that this was wrong but it was love, wasn't it? And love lasts forever. They married and for two weeks they were blissfully happy until Miles stole her Camaro and drove and drove until he was a speck on the horizon with seven police cars chasing after him.

The divorce was quicker than the marriage had lasted and Jessie sold her ring to buy a car that took her back to her parents, Andy and Emily Pride, who wore knowing, smirks on their faces as she pulled up into the drive. Even though Miles had hurt her Jessie wasn't ready to go sour on relationships. When Ralph came around Jessie was nineteen. He was a sweet guy, who worked as a plumber with his father, Ralph was kind and thoughtful but what he had best was a sense of humour. Every hour he was making Jessie laugh and after two years of dating they got married on a hilltop. During their marriage Jessie could still feel a part of their relationship missing nevertheless she ignored it, Ralph made her happy. But after another two years of laughter Ralph came home one day and announced he had met someone else. At first Jessie thought this was another one of his jokes until she saw he was serious and then the tears came.

She was back living with her parents again two days later. It took a year to get over Ralph and Jessie wasn't expecting to find love again. On a Tuesday evening when she went out into town at the local pub she bumped into Bradley. He was charming and good looking. He managed to persuade her to go on a date with him and Jessie ended up falling head over heels. They went on holiday together a few months after their first date and got a bit tipsy and ended up eloping. When the hangover was raw Jessie couldn't believe what she had done, guilt was hanging over her and she couldn't figure out why. Bradley told her they could make it work and she decided to give it a shot. However most of Jessie's work was picking up the empty bottles of alcohol from a sleeping Bradley's grasp. She realised, what she hadn't noticed before due to love blindness, that Bradley always had a drink in his hand. Not ready to have three divorces Jessie talked to Bradley and he agreed, in the end after much denying, he had a problem and agreed to get help.

The third divorce was finalised six months later. Bradley's withdrawal symptoms, depression and anger, was their undoing.

A thud inside the car startled Jessie causing her to open her eyes and get distracted from her thinking of past loves. In the back her guitar had slipped off the seat and into the footwell. Jessie smiled and reached over for the musical instrument and clambered out the car with it in her grasp. She jumped up on to the roof of the car and sat with her legs crossed and placed the guitar in her lap and started to strum while looking up at stars. Her thoughts returned to Miles, Ralph and Bradley but only for a brief moment before they moved on to Buzz Lightyear.

When her marriage with Bradley fell apart Jessie decided that there would be no more. No more relationships, no more marriages, no more dates, no more romance, no more kisses, no more falling in love and no more heartbreak. She was twenty six years old and already had three divorces under her belt and to top it off she was back living with her parents in Sycamore. Jessie stuck to her new rule like glue until a visitor came knocking at the door one day.

Buzz had always been a friend, for ten years, all he was and all she ever thought he would be was her best friend.

In the days when she was six her brother, Woody, made friends with the boy that had bright blue eyes like the summer sky and hair golden brown like honey. Buzz had moved into the town recently and quickly made friends with the Pride siblings. The three of them got up to many silly adventures. They attended first school and secondary school together where they were inseparable. In their teen years Jessie never once suspected that Buzz had a crush on her. Once he had tried to give her a compliment at a party about her hair but she just took that as a friendly greeting. She sometimes noticed that Buzz could be shy around her and to nobody else but he had been shy since he was kid.

When she first started dating Miles, she remembered Buzz being against her relationship to the bad boy but everyone didn't want her to date Miles, Woody, her friends, her parents, so Jessie didn't see Buzz's jealousy in the midst of all the disapproval. Then when she married Ralph she had invited Buzz to the wedding on the hilltop but she never saw him there and yet Buzz had been there to comfort her when the marriage with Ralph caved in. On the Tuesday night she met Bradley at the pub originally she had gone to meet up with Buzz, he had been in a great mood until she told him about Bradley.

So when she returned to her parent's home with her new vow on to never love again, she didn't hear from Buzz for a week until Jessie answered the door to the person that was knocking.

And on that one day the truth Buzz had held for years came pouring out of him. He told Jessie he had loved her since he first met her when they were kids. When he had given her the compliment at the party when they were sixteen, he admitted he had planned to ask her on a date too but couldn't get the nerve to do so. It was something, he told her, that he would regret because if he had asked her sooner she wouldn't have met bad boy Miles and walked down the path she had instead of taking another route with Buzz by her side.

When Buzz finished speaking Jessie was stunned and silent. Her mouth was agape and kept replaying Buzz's words in her head. _'I've always loved you, right from when we were kids. I knew you were the one.'_

"_So why didn't you tell me before?" Jessie had asked._

"_I did try Jess but every time I tried something always came up," said Buzz. _

She asked him to leave then as her mind did cartwheels. Buzz's expression fell and with a brave face he told her to think about what he had said, then gave her a kiss on the cheek and left. As soon as she heard his car drive away Jessie was running upstairs to pack her things. She hurled a small case of clothes into the backseat of her car, along with her guitar, and she was gone. Jessie ran away.

For the rest of the day and all night Jessie drove until she arrived at her brother's house in Elm County. She broke down and told Woody everything Buzz had said and her stupid idiotic brother laughed.

"_Well of course he does, he always has. Didn't you know?"_

"_NO!" Jessie shouted at him. _

The siblings talked for hours the more they chatted the more memories rushed into Jessie's mind of Buzz, things in the past she had always marked off as friendship but were in fact Buzz's attempts to show her his true feelings.

She saw the jealousy in her mind's eye that Buzz felt for Miles, she saw him holding her close as she cried into his shoulder about her break up with Ralph, the way he would brush away the tears from her cheeks and get her smiling, the reason he didn't come to the wedding was because it was too painful, his sweet compliment at the party, why his mood soured at the pub after she told him about Bradley according to Woody he had planned to tell her how he felt then, the time he told her she was beautiful when they were kids and had spent the day playing in the mud and of course his devotion, thoughtfulness and generosity he had given to her throughout the years.

"_Why didn't I see it before? I thought I was the one with the broken heart but Buzz has needed his heart fixing from the start."_

"_You're the only one who can fix it sis and maybe your heart will heal too," said Woody. _

For a month Jessie stayed at her brother's house and helped with the cooking, cleaning and looking after her niece and nephew. Even with all the fun at the house each passing day Jessie's mind wondered back to Buzz. She caught herself at times just staring blankly into space thinking about him and then at night when the house was quiet she dreamed of him.

Then on the morning she left her brother's house Jessie woke up with the realisation she was in love with Buzz.

"_So what are you going to do when you get back to Sycamore?" asked Woody, standing by the driver's side window that was rolled down. Jessie had quickly packed her car with all her things after the revelation._

"_I'm not going back to Sycamore," Jessie told her brother, strapping her seatbelt in. _

"_What! What do you mean? What about Buzz?"_

"_I can't be with him," said Jessie, tears glistening in her emerald eyes. _

"_Why not?" asked Woody. Sometimes he just didn't understand his little sister. Jessie started the car and looked up at her brother. _

"_I j-just can't," she told him as a tear trailed down her cheek. "Trust me it's for the best."_

"_Why?" Woody shouted as the car pulled away. _

The coyotes howled and Jessie paused her playing to listen to their howls and barks until they quietened down. Averting her eyes from the stars Jessie looked down at her hands as she plucked each string on her guitar and eventually started to play a song.

_I'm sitting by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere  
I don't know where I'm goin' but I hope I know it when I get there.  
Thinking about how love never works out,  
but I guess that's the way it goes  
and how this story ends; only heaven knows.  
_

_I always thought there was an angel watchin' over me  
But even angels sometimes make mistakes, as you will see  
'cause I've had my share of bad love affairs,  
in fact, I married three.  
So here's my little story about Miles, Ralph and Bradley  
_

_Miles made me smile 'til he stole my Camaro  
Ralph made me laugh 'til I cried  
And Bradley, oh, I loved him madly  
but his tires were bald, and they went flat  
so did our love and that was that.  
_

_Now I'm sitting' in the middle of nowhere by the side of the road  
One of these days I'll find true love,  
learn how to say 'No'.  
I know in the past my love didn't last  
as I guess this story shows.  
Where was my angel then? Only heaven knows._

_Where was my angel then? Only heaven knows._

A horn beeped in the darkness echoing out through the desert and Jessie nearly dropped the guitar. From her position Jessie saw in the distance a set of headlights and a grin spread across her face.

"Finally Trixie," she said, happily. Jessie jumped down from the top of her car and put her guitar away in the backseats. A van pulled up in front of Jessie's car with a couple of meters between the bumpers and left the headlights on. The door opened as Jessie started to walk over but she froze halfway when she saw who was getting out the van.

"What are you doing here?" Jessie asked, taken aback. Buzz opened up the side of his van and pulled out a toolbox.

"I'm here to fix your car," he said, his voice flat and low. Jessie frowned.

"No I mean how come you are here? I called Trixie to come pick me up," said Jessie.

"Trixie called me to say you'd broken down here and that when she finished talking on the phone with you, she remembered her car is in the shop getting repaired," explained Buzz. Jessie noticed he wasn't looking at her properly, he was staring at her hair not her eyes as he spoke.

Jessie sighed. _'Why did Trixie have to ring Buzz? Anyone but Buzz, I can't face him right now unless this is...meant to be,'_

Composing her emotions Jessie stood to the side and wrapped her arms around herself while Buzz moved nearer to her car so he could check it over. He lifted the bonnet and for a full five minutes he busied himself clunking and clanking with the insides of her car with his tools. Jessie remained still but kept her eyes on Buzz wishing he would just look at her.

"Buzz?" she asked timidly. He didn't hear her or ignored her, either all it annoyed her.

"Buzz!" said Jessie again with a bit more volume to her voice. Buzz stopped working but continued to stare at the engine with his hands resting on the front of the car.

"What?" he asked, not harshly.

"I...I mean we- we need to talk," said Jessie.

"What about?" asked Buzz.

"You know full well what."

Buzz glanced at her and this time their eyes met. Jessie felt her stomach whoop and her heart thud as she stared into his eyes. Buzz swallowed his throat had gone suddenly dry, whenever he was around Jessie all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and never let go, but he couldn't do that as she didn't want him so instead he focused on what to say next. He had been practising this little speech since he heard Jessie had fled and each time, just to think about it, it broke his heart.

"It's okay Jess, we don't need to talk, just forget I ever said anything to you. You don't love me. It's as simple as that."

He lowered his head and waited for her to agree but instead he got...

"What?" Jessie exclaimed. Buzz glanced back up at her.

"That's why you ran isn't it? I told you how I felt and you ran away because you don't return my feelings," said Buzz. Jessie's mouth opened and closed like a fish for half a minute as she thought about what to say back.

"I did run," she admitted sadly. Buzz nodded his head and turned back to Jessie's car unable to face her and continued to fix the issues. Jessie stared down at the ground.

'_No more running! Say it now or you'll lose him forever,' _she thought.

"But you're wrong about returning your feelings."

Jessie gave a small smile when she saw Buzz look back up at her again and stared at her in disbelief and anticipation.

"You see the thing is..." Jessie continued while tip-toeing closer to Buzz. "I love you too."

Buzz was left in a stunned silence. He couldn't believe it. "Y-You do?" he asked, wanting to make sure he had heard correctly. Jessie gave Buzz a nod along with a reassuring smile.

"While I was at Woody's I realised my feelings for you had always been there but I never noticed them until you told me you loved me. But I- I wasn't going to tell you. In fact I was travelling to Avalion when my car broke down. I wasn't going to tell you because every person I married I lost and I was terrified that if I started something with you, I'd lose you too and I don't think I could bare to see that happen but seeing you here now I needed to let you know how I felt and ask if you still feel the same way about me?"

Feeling tense with anticipation for an answer Jessie bit her lip as Buzz made his way over to her and the two stood in front of one another, a footstep apart, just gazing into the others eyes. Buzz reached up a hand a brushed back a strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear but his hand didn't leave her face, his thumb brushed over her cheek down to her jaw gently and his fingers and palm cupped her neck. Their hearts beating heavily they inched ever so closer.

"I will love you forever," vowed Buzz. Jessie closed the gap and their lips crashed together in a long kiss. The feel of his soft lips against hers made Jessie go weak in the knees so she snaked her arms around Buzz's neck and pulled him closer to deepen their kiss. Buzz felt giddy with emotion with so much passion roaring through his body he felt lightheaded as though he could walk on clouds at any moment. Everything was right and together they knew they will live long and happy lives. Their lips parted a second for air and their eyes, dazed and cloudy, met once more in the middle.

* * *

**Well, what did you think? Review and let me know. :)**

**Reeves3.**


End file.
